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Conservative Member of Parliament Steven Fletcher waits to leave following a news conference regarding his two private member's bills dealing with physician-assisted suicide, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa March 27, 2014. (REUTERS/Chris Wattie)

OTTAWA — In what appears to be a softening on the issue from Canada's doctors, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) voted Tuesday to allow doctors to follow their conscience if and when assisted suicide becomes legal in Canada.

Previously, the CMA had opposed the idea of medically assisted euthanasia.

But with recent end-of-life legislation in Quebec, as well as two related bills put forward by Steven Fletcher, a Conservative MP who was paralyzed after a car accident in 1996, Canadians' views -- as well as the country's laws -- could be changing.

CMA membership accepted with a 91% vote the resolution that "within the bounds of existing legislation, to follow their conscience when deciding whether to provide medical aid in dying."

Only 8% voted against with 1% abstaining.

Dr. Jeff Blackmer, executive director of ethics at CMA, says the resolution is about "looking over the horizon."

"If (doctor-assisted suicide) does become legalized, then we know where our members are and how we will position ourselves," Blackmer told QMI Agency. "But there will definitely be more discussion about this."

Doctor-assisted suicide was the topic on the second day of the CMA's annual general meeting in Ottawa, featuring Dr. Eric van Wijlick, a senior policy advisor to the Royal Dutch Medical Association.

The Netherlands adopted its Euthenasia Act in 2002, the introduction which actually led to a decrease in doctor-assisted deaths and attributed that to a corresponding increase in palliative care available, said van Wijlick.

"Citing wide diversity in Dutch society about the sense of essential nature of human existence, it contravened that a particular social order represented by a portion of the population — those who regard life as sacred — cannot be declared so binding that it may be imposed on the whole and leave no room for those with other beliefs," he said.

Dr. Angela Genges, specializes in neurology at McGill University and in ALS, an aggressive neurodegenerative disease, at the ALS Clinic in Montreal.

Genges said her experience with one ALS patient was fairly representative.

He was very open to an end-of-life option from the start.

But, she said, "as time went on ... he began to change the point at which he wanted to die."

Patients will say, for example, they want to end life when they are no longer mobile, Genges said. But often by the time that phase arrives, the patient has made adjustments to accommodate ailments.

"This is 100% across the board," she said, and something to consider as laws and opinions change in the country.